Downloadable Audio books: I'm Already a Fan

Alan and I have been downloading Audiobooks ever since HCPL offered this service. We are big fans and it is so much easier carrying an MP3 player than a boom box or CD player. The only difficulty we've had is that not all MP3 players can accept audiobooks. And, when you go to a place like BestBuys to find one, the employees generally cannot advise you which ones will do audiobooks and which won't. Even MP3 players that say they play WRA-DRM, it doesn't mean they actually will play audiobooks. In addition, the list of tested devices is pretty small and some are no longer available. Finally, we have found that the Creative MP3 players (on the OK for audiobooks list) are not compatible with our Dell computers. We think that the Dell computers cannot recognize the Creative MP3 players because of the way that they are partitioned. The best advice is to find someone who is using one for audiobooks and get the same one. (But make sure you keep the receipt so you can return it if need be.)

I did not know that Project Gutenberg had audiobooks. Project Gutenberg is a great service, since many of the books included are no longer carried in many smaller libraries. These titles do not tend to "fly off the shelves". But it would be cultural loss if we had no access to them. The audiobooks vary in quality. The reading of the John Donne poem was pretty bad, but the Sherlock Holmes Sign of Four reading was quite good. It seems that some of the readers are not professional and it shows. But, I'd rather have access to an audiobook than not have it at all.